Green-Labor Alliance Bad for Workers

Gongwer New Service reported last week that a new BlueGreen Alliance “Jobs21 Initiative” has been formed. The BlueGreen Alliance is comprised of labor and environmental activists who will promote green jobs as the promised path to economic prosperity. That’s bad news for Michigan workers because the BlueGreen Alliance has more to do with liberal politics than job creation.

So-called green jobs in most cases turn out to be job killers rather than job creators. Green jobs generated from alternative energy projects such as wind and solar power rely heavily on government subsidies and mandates, an increasingly risky strategy given that the federal government and many states are deep in debt. It is inevitable that government subsidies for green projects will be cut back, resulting in those projects becoming even less economically competitive.

Most of the major components used in wind and solar energy are not even produced by American workers and the ones that are often rely on government grants and tax breaks. The promise of generating good paying green jobs makes for good political rhetoric, but experience in green social engineering in Europe has shown it to be an economic loser with more jobs being lost than gained.

Union workers should reject the leftist political agenda of their leaders and demand common sense policies that are in their best interest. Texas and other areas of the country are in an economic boom due to their support of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas. Michigan’s natural gas deposits support the potential of creating high-paying jobs using the same technology. It is a safe bet that environmental groups in the state will diligently work to regulate those jobs out of existence. The last thing Michigan workers need is to have organized labor leaders helping kill the new jobs.  

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